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Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Ancient Art / KUNIMARO .
UTAGAWA KUNIMARO (active c. 1840s–1870s) Title: 武芸水滸伝 阿ぬ穂局 (Bugei Suikoden – Anabo no Tsubone), The Lady Anabo Series: Bugei Suikoden (武芸水滸伝), A Water Margin of Martial Arts Date: Bunkyū 3 (1863), provisional, from the date seal Signature: Kunimaro ga (國麿画) in a red cartouche Seals: Date seal, publisher's seal, carver's seal Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. 36 × 25 cm Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga), polychrome (nishiki-e) Condition Very good colour and impression with details very well preserved. A minor repair and a minor soiling on the margins are noted otherwise the paper is firm and subtle. Good overall! Please check the images! THE PRINT The text panel on the sheet tells her story. She was born into humble circumstances, but she was brave by nature and devoted to the martial arts. She was also a great beauty. An old tanuki, the shapeshifting raccoon-dog of Japanese folklore, took the form of a handsome young man to seduce her. She saw through the disguise and killed it, and the creature turned out to be an enormous tanuki. Her lord heard of her courage and took her into his household as a consort. Later, when violent turmoil broke out in the household, she took up a naginata, fought off many attackers, and finally died fighting. The Bugei Suikoden borrows its title from the Suikoden, the Chinese Water Margin, whose 108 outlaw heroes Utagawa Kuniyoshi had made enormously popular in Edo from the late 1820s. The subjects of this series are Japanese, not Chinese. They are masters of the martial arts and remarkable fighters, such as the spear-fighting monk Hōzōin Kakuzenbō In'ei and Kamiizumi Ise-no-kami, founder of the Shinkage school of swordsmanship. Utagawa Kunimaro was a pupil of Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III). He is said to have trained first under Utagawa Sadafusa and worked early on under the name Fusahiro. He was active from the late Tenpō era into the first years of Meiji and also illustrated books and designed sugoroku game sheets. His single-sheet prints are far less often seen than those of his teacher.
Estimate:$224.02
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Estimate:
$224.02
EGYPTIAN BRONZE INLAID APPLIQUE OF URAEUS - MUSEUM EXHIBITED
06/21/2026
$1,854.44
Est: $1,341.83
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